More of the Same

 The pace of life has me running around. No time for a bunch of words.  Here are some photos to tide you over. We have a pretty good training situation at the moment. Snow and ice-free here in town for running and rollerskiing. And a meter of snow an hour away for our couple of days per week on snow at Hatcher Pass.

We get started before sunrise.

Suiting up for intervals

Interval No 1.

Trond, Tuva and Astrid before their final interval

Start of the final interval

Scenes From Hatcher

There's plenty of snow an hour north of town. Probably about a meter of it. There's not much else to say.

G and Pascale

Generally speaking, I try not to put formal group photos on this website. I'm making an exception.

A few laughs at the end of the day's workout

At Archangel Valley

Looking down Hatcher Pass Road

Karly

One of the Tuvas

Let's Not Get Ahead Of Ourselves

Last weekend at Hatcher

 Most ambitious cross-country ski racers are eager to get on snow as early as possible in the season, to get a sufficient amount of time and distance on skis before the racing season begins. Most skiers are willing to drive long distances or buy plane tickets and book rooms in hotels for an opportunity to get a good week of quality on-snow ski training in November. West Yellowstone, Montana, for example, is booked solid around Thanksgiving, with skiers traveling there from all around the USA. And it's the same overseas, with ski racers traveling from around Europe to spend a week or two in Norway or Finland for good, reliable early-season skiing in Scandinavia.

October 10, 2021

But we are on the other side of the coin here in Alaska. It's been our experience that too much skiing too early in the season can produce really promising results in December and early January, but it can be really tough to hold that good racing form all the way through "championship season" in February and March. Our problem is that sometimes the snow comes a little too early. I can think of many examples of Alaska teams who switched from dryland training to on-snow training in September or October. Things went great until January, but the results started falling off in January. And by March, after six months on snow, the athletes were toast.

So on this team, we've tended to be very cautious about early season skiing. In the Lower 48, ski racers flock to West Yellowstone during the last week of November. But here in Alaska, we're trying to resist the urge to go skiing in early October. For now, we're hoping our precipitation here in the city comes in the form of rain, not snow, so we'll continue to have good conditions for running, hill bounding and rollerskiing.

Nevertheless, I made a little reconnaissance trip about an hour's drive north of Anchorage to Hatcher Pass last week, to see what the skiing situation was like up there. And when it's as good as it is now, it can be hard to resist making the drive to ski several times per week. On this team, we try to stay calm and not overdo it in October. But the word among the coaches is we'll load up the team van this Saturday and go skiing.

Fall Colors

I was reading something on the internet earlier today.  It said something about how it's going to be a snowy and cold winter this year, just like back in the 1970's. I think that's what it said anyway. I didn't read it too carefully.  I just sort of glanced at it, actually. I think the article said that we'd already had a cold and rainy summer, and now we are in the middle of a cold and rainy fall, and I guess maybe there was something in there about how this trend was expected to continue with a cold and snowy winter. Or something like that.  You can read a find all kinds of stuff on the internet. There's something to support everyone's unique version of reality.  You can find stuff about chemtrails, and vaccinations that will turn you into a magnet, and the 2020 election... stuff that will blow your mind. So I guess I shouldn't be so shocked that someone is predicting a colder and snowier winter than average. But then again, maybe this article wasn't really saying that at all. Like I said, I wasn't really paying attention.

On the other hand, someone at ski practice told me the other day - I think it was Tuva the Deuce - that we're going to have a La Nina winter, and that means more snow than usual.  Or maybe it was an El Nino. I'm not really sure. It's not that I wasn't paying attention to Tuva the Deuce. I was. It was more that I don't think she was sure whether it is supposed to be an El Nino or a La Nina. And I can't keep them straight myself.  So I don't really know if we figured out anything during that conversation.  We were kind of tired from intervals anyway, because this was a warm-down jog after a solid 40 minutes of hard effort. So maybe we were both a little confused. But I'm pretty sure she said it was going to be an El Nino. Or a La Nina. 

Personally, I haven't been keeping weather statistics in my diary. But this past summer seemed kind of cold and miserable. I mean, except for those two times I went down to the Mojave Desert to ride my motorcycle and there were heat waves and it was scorching hot. But I'm not talking about those times. I'm talking about the rest of the summer, when I was here in Alaska. And it was cold and wet. This fall hasn't exactly been beach weather, either.  It snowed (a lot) on the hillside above Anchorage a couple of weeks ago, and it hasn't melted yet. Otherwise, for the most part, we've had two types of weather this fall: a) gray weather, and b) rain.

I think I read on the internet this evening that there's a meter of snow at Hatcher Pass, and they've been grooming it for xc skiing. I don't know if that's true or not. But if it's on the internet then there has to be at least some truth to it, doesn't there?  Maybe I'll drive up there tomorrow and scope it out for myself, and go for a little ski tour.  I bet someone up there will know if this is going to be an El Nino winter or a La Nina winter.

Look how warmly we needed to bundle ourselves up just to eat post-soccer pizza last week. 

Receiving pre-interval instructions from Trond

The Tuvas and APU Anna

We went a few hours this morning. Tour de South Anchorage.

Along our route. Some of the puddles were deeper than I expected.

It didn't stop raining while we were out there.

 It was a pleasant surprise when Tyler Hippchen of the Kenai High School XC running team stopped me in the Kodiak Airport last week to tell me that he reads this blog. So I'm mentioning him in this blog post.  Good luck with your coming ski season, Tyler!